


God In The Details

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Series: Many Little AUs for the Purpose of Exploding the Lilshotgun Tag [2]
Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26227303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: Artist AU - Lilith is a highly trained painter living in London, and Mary is the American artist who moves into the loft across the hall. This will either become a long fic, or part of a series of short AUs, or both. I have no idea. Enjoy.  :)
Relationships: Sister Lilith/Shotgun Mary (Warrior Nun)
Series: Many Little AUs for the Purpose of Exploding the Lilshotgun Tag [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905607
Comments: 16
Kudos: 45





	God In The Details

Lilith heard the new neighbor moving into the loft across the hall just a few days before. Another artist. Camden was full of them.

This one, though, was American. Lilith didn’t even have to hear her speak to know it. From a distance, she spotted the sneakers, the pack of Marlboros jammed into the back pocket of her black jeans, the easy swagger. Lilith was good with details, with seeing them, with etching them into her mind.She was good at details, because she had always been told, God was in them.

Some American bebop jazz blared out of the neighbor’s large open doorway into the hall, Miles Davis maybe.

Jazz. That was never a good sign, Lilith thought irritably.She slammed her own door shut and continued to work. Her commission was a larger than life reproduction of Boticcelli’s “Birth of Venus”, and she had to get on with it because it was going to come due sooner than she’d like. She was currently working on Venus’s exposed breast, with its annoyingly pigment-less nipple. Her work wasn’t always reproductions for wealthy collectors or public libraries; sometimes it was restoration, which she was also quite good at. This was to be expected, of course. You could trace her lineage back to Bastiano da Sangallo, who worked as Michelangelo’s right hand in his studio in Florence.

Eventually, though her hand became stiff, and she decided she’d take a break and knock on her new neighbor’s door and inspect their work. Lilith had a keen eye for quality, and was inexplicably anxious to know whether her new neighbor was any good. One had to have a bit of money coming in to afford a loft this size in this part of town, but that in itself wasn’t an indication of whether she was a good painter.

The frantic jazz poked out from under the door as Lilith gave a good, sound knock. She heard the music volume dip, and then footsteps coming toward her. The door opened, and Lilith had her words ready, but forgot them.

She hadn’t really gotten a good look at this American when she was moving in, but now, they were face to face, and she was in a tank top that showed off her muscular bronze arms, with a cigarette dangling from her lips, and a faint smile, like she was amused to see Lilith. “What can I do for you?”

She asked it in a way that at once telegraphed that she could think of quite a few things she’d like to do for her, and didn’t care if she wasn’t interested in any of them.

Lilith coughed a little. “I’m… your new neighbor across the way. I just wanted to introduce myself.” She put hand out. “Lilith.”

The American wiped her hand on her jeans, then took Lilith’s hand and shook it. “Mary.” Her dark, intelligent eyes flicked once over Lilith, and then she said, “You don’t need to worry about me, Lilith. I’m not competition.” She stood aside to invite her in. “Come on in.”

Lilith frowned. Did she really seem so desperately competitive that this Mary sized her up that quickly and correctly? 

“You like jazz?” Mary asked.

Lilith shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know much, to be honest.”

Mary walked over to an old, stainless steel fridge. “You want a beer?”

Lilith shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ve actually got to get back to work after this.”

Mary looked at her for a moment. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Lilith frowned again, and then looked around at the studio. It was full of large canvases, many of them larger than the one in Lilith’s studio, and Lilith could only describe them as “what jazz would look like if it were painted.” It was abstract; lots of swirls, sprays, pops of color, chaotic. But it was intentional. Organized. Thoughtful. Lilith was convinced that she hated abstract art, but there was form, here. Content. Mary painted something wild that couldn’t be contained in simple shapes.

It was some of the most advanced technique she’d ever seen.

She couldn’t quite explain why it frustrated her.

Mary stepped a little closer. Lilith noticed a smudge of cerulean on her wrist. “Like what you see?” Mary asked casually.

“It’s very modern.” Lilith didn’t want to admit how good it was.

Mary drifted a little closer, sipping on her beer. She smelled like cloves, and smoke, and leather, and warm weather. “Not your style, huh?” But she didn’t seem the least bit offended by this. “You like the neoclassicists, right?”

Lilith dug a toe of her boot into the wooden floor. “I do.”

“Can I see your work?” Mary asked.

Lilith wanted to run away, but obviously that would be ridiculous. The American was simply being friendly. Wasn’t she? “I’m in the middle of something… it’s unfinished.”

Mary lifted the bottle in her direction. “I bet I can still tell by looking at it how good you are.”

Surrendering, Lilith led her back across the hall to where the reproduction of Botticcelli stood. She knew she was the best at her trade, and shouldn’t feel the least bit embarrassed at the fact that she wasn’t doing original work, but Mary was different, and Lilith wanted to impress her.

Mary was gracious. She went up to the canvas, nursing her beer, inspecting it. “Nice brush work,” she commented. “You really nailed his touch. Your client ought to be happy.”

Something about the way she said this got under Lilith’s skin. Mary’s art was the kind of art that people just …buy.She painted things from out of her head, and people wanted them. Maybe Mary was being kind, but Lilith suddenly felt not like an artist, but rather like a draftsman. “I do a lot of restoration as well,” she said, and since she couldn’t decide whether she wanted it to come out apologetic or confident, it ended up sounding haughty. “The National Gallery has hired me for several Dutch Realist restorations.”

Mary smiled lazily. “I can see why. You got the goods.” She glanced around at the rest of the canvases, nodding appreciatively. “Well, I don’t want to keep you from your, uh… unfinished nipple up there. I’ll see you around, Lilith.”

Lilith watched her walk out the door, and across the hall. She watched the shape of her shoulders shift as she walked, committing the particular amber-like color of her skin to memory, remembering the spatter of cerulean like a neon light on her wrist. She etched them onto her mind.

She had the thought to call after her, “The nipple is supposed to be like that!” but Mary’s door was already closed, and it was far too late.

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided that I will write all these AUs in this series and the one that people like the best gets to be a longfic. :D


End file.
